Voice Is The Enterprise’s Next Great UI

Last year, voice applications arrived to take the world by storm … or did they?

There’s no doubt many brands made large investments in voice-powered technologies. 2017 saw Apple, Google, Panasonic and Sony all announce new smart speakers. And, of course, Amazon continues to lead the charge with Alexa, most recently announcing Alexa for Business.

However, while most experts believe voice will be a billion-dollar industry, consumer adoption is growing steadily but slowly. A VoiceLabs report from early 2017 noted that there are plenty of Alexa Skills that are accessed but not “heavily used,” with only 31% having more than one consumer review. What’s more, there’s only a 3% chance that a person who activates an Alexa voice app will remain an active user two weeks later.

The fact is, while consumers are purchasing the hardware (Amazon sold over 11 million Echo units in 2016, and Forrester predicted that number would double in 2017), they don’t seem to be finding much utility beyond the obvious: ordering groceries, setting reminders, playing music, etc.

On the other hand, in the enterprise, the utility of voice is increasingly obvious. Voice is primed to become a productivity powerhouse, driving cost-savings and efficiencies for any type of business. As such, we’ve already seen enterprises experimenting with smart tech to make workers’ lives easier, hence the adoption of products like Google Glass Enterprise Edition, Slack (and its myriad integrations) and Orion’s push-to-talk wearables and translation bots.

When it comes to the potential for smart voice tech to transform the enterprise, the use cases are compelling. Organizations around the world are using speech to power a range of integrations across different kinds of devices, in different industries. We are already, for instance, seeing enterprises deploy chatbots across smartphones and other smart devices and wearables like Google Glass to accomplish business tasks.

Here are three indicators that voice will be the enterprise’s top 2018 trend.

1. Automation Everywhere

Automation technologies have already begun to transform the enterprise. Today’s businesses are using cloud-based platforms to automate marketing, customer service, accounting, data entry and more. Basic automation capabilities have become table stakes in areas that tend to be heavy on repetitive administration tasks, and leading providers like Salesforce, Oracle and SAP continue to grow rapidly as a result.

At the same time, these automation behemoths are joined by new breeds of AI startups, with the net result being a huge range of automation options available for companies large and small.

Automation is already widespread, but today’s use cases are just the tip of the spear. Automation in the far future will transform how humans work and the types of jobs we do. And that’s a good thing. In fact, early data shows that automation is actually creating more jobs than it replaces.

The next evolution of this trend is not widespread joblessness; it is the merging of humans and software. Through simply speaking, users can trigger macros to automate administrative data entry such as expense logging or other basic tasks like sending emails to a team alias. Sci-fi fantasy films of the 1980s are finally becoming a reality, as workers will soon automate tasks and receive updates from their computers by talking to them.

2. Chatbot Proliferation

2017 saw chatbots increasingly adopted for both consumer and enterprise use cases. While the benefits of a chatbot that can act as a customer service representative are obvious, what I find more exciting is what chatbots can do for workers as virtual assistants and intelligence amplifiers.

With improvements in AI, especially natural language understanding (NLU), chatbots can process simple commands and queries, removing the need for a worker to dig through spreadsheets or databases for information and instead receive accurate, on-the-spot intelligence to help deliver better business outcomes.

This can be especially valuable when, for instance, an executive has an urgent question or is in a crisis situation such as a cybersecurity breach where a quick response is essential. These types of specialized chatbots streamline the process and make it easier to digest and distill necessary insights for the end user, so an executive can quickly respond to their organization and stakeholders.

Enterprise chatbots have recently been launched to act as virtual assistants for professionals like accountants, security analysts and more. The rise of chatbots is proof-positive for how far NLU has come in a few short years, and what organizations are already accomplishing with these integrations is truly inspiring.

3. Convergence Is Coming

The software advancements described above come alongside hardware improvements that have set the stage for a convergence of technologies that I believe will be as transformative as the introduction of smartphones in 2007. As smartphones established touchscreens as the next great UI, smart chatbots and automation technologies will do the same for voice.

On one end, we have powerful backend automation platforms. On the other, we have widespread adoption of voice-powered devices, from smartphones to wearables to static devices like Alexa and Google Home. Sitting in the middle of this ecosystem are chatbots/virtual assistants that can increasingly better understand us and operate applications on our behalf.

These technologies are converging to create a powerful, new way of working and collaborating — all through the power of simple, spoken words.

The Value Of Voice, The Future Of Business

Today’s workforce faces new challenges born out of our on-demand, always-on consumer behaviors. The need for simpler, streamlined collaboration has never been more urgent. The potential of technology to automate work and make employees more effective has never been higher. Today, voice is improving efficiencies while also providing a more satisfying work experience.

As voice tech continues to improve and be adopted widely, first within the enterprise and then fully by consumers, we stand on the cusp of a new world where the nature of what we consider to be “work” will be transformed. Voice stands ready to power this new world, to bridge the gap between humans and incredibly powerful technologies and make all of our lives easier.

Originally published at https://www.forbes.com.